Free will re-redux

I mean I'm a compatiblist so just gotta take my lumps I suppose.

That's the worst position, philosophically speaking.

The complexities of trying argue this (point) philosophically, make it a waste of time and effort.

It's more that the argument is begging the question. If free will can be explained in terms of some non-free processes, then it isn't free. It's a trick question.

Personally I think there is only mental causation, but a less "extreme" position would be that free will is possible because there is no such thing as a randomness/determinist dichotomy.

I don't find free will to be self-evident at all. I do not directly experience making a free decision. Heck, I don't even experience making simple decisions that we might agree are deterministic. The underlying operation of the brain/whatever-else are entirely opaque.

~~ Paul

I don't exactly understand what you mean by this. If you're a conscious agent then you would experience making a free decision. You haven't chosen to do ANYTHING before?

That's the worst position, philosophically speaking.

Why's that?

Personally I think there is only mental causation, but a less "extreme" position would be that free will is possible because there is no such thing as a randomness/determinist dichotomy.

Mental causation such as things like readiness potential and influence from the environment?

It seems to me that such creativity can’t be either deterministic or random. It’s in that gray area...

I don't think anything can be fundamentally classified as deterministic nor random.

If something is deterministic, it implies the same cause produces the same effect. If something is random, it implies that there is a break between cause and effect, and thus at least *once* the same causes will not produce the same effect. These are just descriptions of what we expect to happen, not explanations of causality which would include not only why something happens but also why some other possibility doesn't happen.

But then determinism is just randomness of a special kind. People can use terms like "Laws of Nature"  as an attempt to explain why determinism is not just a probability assignment (namely P(event) =1) but that only leads to the question of why the Laws don't change and how the Laws enforce causal relationships. So the Laws would then also have no reason not to change, and thus are also random in the sense their seeming permanence also happens for no reason.

Then we're left with randomness, which suggests things happen for no reason because no cause can guarantee an effect. That could almost be acceptable, save this would also mean the Universals of Math & Logic have no genuine truth value as all reasoning is also just randomness. I personally can't imagine that, and I think it's actually hard to conceive things happening for no reason at all.

Why's that?

Because the only way compatibilism works is to change the meaning of the word "Free".

Mental causation such as things like readiness potential and influence from the environment?

Mental causation as when a Mind decides among varied possibilities.

Because the only way compatibilism works is to change the meaning of the word "Free".


Mental causation as when a Mind decides among varied possibilities.

Ah okay I didn't understand. And compatibilism is a compromise, but I was putting it forward to a compromise to what Paul's position was, purely random/deterministic.

Ah okay I didn't understand. And compatibilism is a compromise, but I was putting it forward to a compromise to what Paul's position was, purely random/deterministic.

But compatibilism isn't a compromise so much as an attempt to claim someone can be free even if all their actions are predetermined.

And it only works if you are starting with "Libertarian" assumptions.

"Now, I know compatibilists think they have arguments that compatibilism is interesting and fruitful. They may say, perhaps, that Frankfurt-cases show that we can be morally responsible even in cases where we couldn't behave otherwise. Yet I have to confess that I've always been baffled by how Frankfurt cases are used in the debate. Here, after all, is the classic Frankfurt case set-up. We are supposed to (A) imagine a person making a choice P, and then (B) imagine a mechanism which, if the person tried to make some alternative choice Q, would force the person to instead choose P.  Here, for instance, is a typical case (copied from Wikipedia):

Donald is a Democrat and is likely to vote for the Democrats; in fact, only in one particular circumstance will he not: that is, if he thinks about the prospects of immediate American defeat in Iraq just prior to voting. Ms White, a representative of the Democratic Party, wants to ensure that Donald votes Democratic, so she secretly plants a device in Donald's head that, if activated, will force him to vote Democratic. Not wishing to reveal her presence unnecessarily, Ms White plans to activate the device only if Donald thinks about the Iraq prior to voting. As things happen, Donald does not think about Iraq prior to voting, so Ms White thus sees no reason to activate the device, and Donald votes Democratic of his own accord. Apparently, Donald is responsible for voting Democratic although, owing to Ms. White's device, he lacks freedom to do otherwise.

Here is the problem. Frankfurt cases are strongly disanalogous to physical determinism. In a Frankfurt case, the person's action is not determined by any actual physical laws.  The sense in which the person "cannot do otherwise" is entirely counterfactual. It is that if they tried to choose otherwise, someone (or some mechanism) would step in and ensure that they don't succeed. But this "trying" isn't even possible under physical determinism. It's not the case that if I tried to behave otherwise than I do, physical laws would step in and stop me. It's that I can't even try to behave otherwise if physical determinism is true (it is not a physical possibility). This, then, is the problem with Frankfurt cases. They push certain intuitions -- that we can be morally responsible for our actions even if we couldn't do otherwise -- because, contrary to determinism, they smuggle in libertarian intuitions. They do this because alternative possibilities are only ruled out counterfactually. For all Frankfurt cases show, the reason why we judge a person free and responsible in those cases is that (A) we judge the person had libertarian free will to make the choice (they caused their action independently of physical laws), but (B) alternative possibilities are counterfactually ruled out because, if they libertarian-ly tried to choose something else, some mechanism would force them to behave the same way.

Accordingly, Frankfurt cases don't seem sufficient to me to philosophically motivate compatibilism. They're a poor analogy to determinism. In order to motivate compatibilism, we would have to tell a story like the one above (about voting for democrats) using determinism. But when we tell such a story, it doesn't seem at all like the person is free or morally responsible. For here's such a story:

Donald is a Democrat, and his vote for the democratic candidate was fully determined by the laws of nature billions of years ago.

I take it when we look just at this case, we all have the incompatibilist intuition that of course Donald isn't responsible for his actions."

But compatibilism isn't a compromise so much as an attempt to claim someone can be free even if all their actions are predetermined.

I do admit there are decent crticisms, as with any philosophical position. I personally think that we might have some libertarian free will, but entertaining completely deterministic I think compatibalism IS an option. Doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.

I do admit there are decent crticisms, as with any philosophical position. I personally think that we might have some libertarian free will, but entertaining completely deterministic I think compatibalism IS an option. Doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.

Well it's not about whether or not we have free will.

It's that compatibilism is a position that makes absolutely zero sense.

I don't think that's doom and gloom, since the deterministic position as usually described - adherence to Laws of Nature - also makes no sense. [And of course Randomness by definition makes no sense.]